VIDEO

RESULTS

Crucial Part of the Season for NJRC
The culmination of the 2009 NJRC is now only six weeks away with six events still remaining. September the sees the championship part of three events on three consecutive weekends starting with the Castle Mini Stages next Sunday the sixth, then only a week later the championship moves to Wexford for the Dick Bailey Wexford Stages Junior Rally and from there for the third event in as many weeks we travel to the West of the Country for the Clare Stages Junior Rally. The championship finally draws to a close over two weekends in October, first up is the Cork 20 Junior Rally on the fourth of the month, with the culmination of the season on a hectic weekends actions on the tenth and eleventh as the Donegal Harvest Junior Rally and Birr Forestry Junior Rally brings the curtain down.
The last event (Round 8) the Cork Forestry Junior Rally saw a change of leadership as Craig Breen regained a two-point advantage over Jonathan Cunningham with a dominant start to finish win. Third on the table John Byrnes also had a good result as he finished second overall and picked up eight points. These three have opened a gap to the rest of the field and it now looks that the Junior Champion for 2009 will come from Waterford, Galway or Limerick. Craig tops the table on thirty-eight points, Cunningham in second place on thirty-six and John Byrnes in third with thirty-four. The remainder of the championship and the destination of the title now rely on strategy as much as performance on the stages. At the finish ramp in Cork all the competitors viewed the same opinion that with the nature of the championship regulations and points scoring system that it is important to have as many drivers entered on each event to score maximum points.

Regulations and Points Recap:
The best performance from any 5 events will count towards the Championship. A minimum of 4 events must be completed in order to qualify for an award. For each rally in the championship, a separate classification of the registered drivers in each class will be drawn from the general classification and points will be awarded to the registered drivers in each class according to the following scale: 10 points for a maximum score, eight points for second and six points for third when there's three or more starters in a class. If there are only two starters in a class the maximum points on offer will drop to eight and finally if there is only one registered competitor starting an event the maximum points he can attain is six. With this in mind there are no registered drivers making the trip to Co. Meath for the Castle event or down to Wexford. In this case Jonathan Cunningham and John Byrnes are treating round eleven the Clare Stages as a home event being from neighboring counties. Craig Breen is planning to head to Clare also but to take part in the main field and from there will contest the final round in Nenagh (Birr Forestry) which will be his fifth event and qualifies him for an award in the championship. Both Jonathan Cunningham and John Byrnes have already taken part on five events to date, so if they were to score maximum points in Clare or any other remaining event their point’s totals would then need to be revaluated and dropped scores would come into play.
Apart from the top three both O'Connor brothers from Askeaton, Co. Limerick are intending to take part in Clare. Kevin the younger of the two has suffered some bad luck since winning round six in Carrick on Suir (Ravens Rock Junior Rally). Round seven (ALMC) saw him crash out on the first stage in slippery conditions and then in Cork on round eight he was lying in second place after the opening two stages when on stage three a rock got dragged into the engine and pulled off the timing belt ending his rally. Older brother John’s (G3 Escort) last event was the Ravens Rock and after not competing in Cork he will be hoping for a good result and get back on track for the remainder of the season. Vincent McAree from Co. Monaghan currently holding fourth place in the championship was having a great battle with John Byrnes over the morning stages in Cork but it all came to an abrupt end on stage five when the engine of his Peugeot 206 dropped a valve. Vincent stated a few days later that he had removed the engine and it would need a rebuild. As to the remainder of his season it now looks that Vincent will only contest the final round in Birr.
For up to date information and reports from each event in the championship logon to www.motorsportireland.com and follow the championship link on the homepage.